


Prank Wars

by LostInQueue



Category: Star Wars
Genre: Employment, F/M, Gen, Graffiti, Jokes, Moving, Prank Wars, Pranks, Summer Camp, camp councilors, genital shaped soap molds, girls aren’t much better, guys are jerks, hot wheels cars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 17:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19278100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostInQueue/pseuds/LostInQueue
Summary: Rose works for a sleep away summer camp where councilors stay in same sex cabins with their campers. Over the years since it’s been opened, there has been somewhat of a girls vs boys hostile takeover. Pranks on each other has quickly escalated from the innocent ones of the past. Rose uses her friend’s sarcastic ideas on them, successfully stalling the guy’s efforts here and there. That is, until they wrap all of the contents of their cabin and cars in ceran wrap.Unkar’s parent’s shop is sold, leaving Rey to find work elsewhere. He convinces his friend to go have the childhood she missed out on even though she’s no longer a child. She finds that becoming a councilor is not all it’s cracked up to be, that is, until she meets the one they call Solo.





	Prank Wars

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve never been to a sleep away camp so sorry in advance if none of this adds up. 😂😂😂
> 
> It was funny to write though. 
> 
> This prompt was initially taken because my mom kept dumping things she didn’t want anymore (not even my stuff) with my in-laws or outside of the house refusing to tell me about it. You could imagine how irritating that is... sooo I turned the concept into pranks for this story. Can you guess which prank I’m referring to?  
> 😂😂😂

Rose barrels in to Unkar’s family lot with three iced coffee and a separate creamer for their morning vent session. She was always popping in but during the late spring, when schools were finishing up for the year, the camp she worked at would take on kids whose parents still worked. This obviously meant there was extra venting to be done.  
   
This morning is no different.

“You have NO IDEA what we went through yesterday,” Rose starts.

“I’m sure you’re going to tell us.” Unkar snorts, ready to take his coffee off out of the tray.

Rose turns quickly, taunting Unkar. “No coffee of any kind without your daily dose of camp drama.”

“That’s not why you buy it for me.”

Rose tilts her head pressing her lips together in a firm line, humming her usual question, “Isn’t it though?”

“I think you just like to hang out with us.”

“Instead of going to open? Oh yes. Sign me up for ‘I don’t want to do that extra work for the extra two fifty they supposedly give to scrub down the docks.’ You don’t get it. You’re in here all day long in the air conditioning—that Rey fixed,” Rose reminds him.

“If you hate it there so much, why do you bother going in?”

“It’s the easiest damn job I have ever kept.”

“What else have you done?”

“I think you know. How long have we known each other? Going on eight years now?”

“Yea you were a pipsqueak then,” he goes to grab at his coffee again with no luck.

“Yea and according to you, I still am. What did you call me before?”

“You think I remember what I did before you came in?”

Rose laughs, “You always know. Just like you always have the best retaliation ideas. I’ll have you know I’ve used every single one over the time I’ve been there. I’m somewhat of a legend.”

“You cant be serious. Every single one?”

Rose can’t hide her smile.

“Tell me that isn’t true.”

Her grin only grows.

“Rosie?”

Cackling. Rose is cackling.

“Yes, okay? They were the best damned jokes I have ever heard. Pranks… they’re the best pranks,” she corrects herself. “But that’s the thing. Every year it gets worse because of my reputation.”

“Then maybe you should stop?” Unkar hates the way that his voice betrays him when he suggests it.

“Maybe, but where’s the fun in that?”

Rey shakes her head at her friend.

“Did you get me a muffin?”

“Yep!”

Unkar perks up looking for the cinnamon bun she always brings him.

“Oh no! No food until I get my latest scoop out. You can have your coffee though—that I will allow.”

Unkar rolls his eyes at Rey for help but there’s not much she can do about it. Rose was training them whether they liked it or not. The girl was dying to be at the top of the totem pole when it came to outdoing the guys and she’s never left the Plutt’s Family Post empty handed. Empty handed wasn’t the right description actually… It was more like she was fully loaded for war. Every side comment or sarcastic remark made on behalf of her venting sessions brought the ammunition needed to own the day.

“So,” Rose starts and looks at her watch. “I have twenty minutes to dish and then I have to sprint like hell to get there before morning ceremony.”

Both Rey and Unkar lift their eyebrows and focus on their coffees trying to just get through the nonsense when Rose brings up the fact that the guys cellophaned all of their stuff.  
   
“I mean the damned building was wrapped. Not the outside. I mean the contents.” Rose’s whole body moves with her ‘oh hell no’ attitude. “I don’t know which house is doing it because there are three for the boys and three for the girls. But I do know that some ass wad decided to wrap the toilets, showers – which I don’t know how that is even possible unless they used that window wrap shit like they do in the winter? But they wrapped all of our stuff, soap? Who the fuck wraps soap? They did all the bedding, towels, beds themselves, and while were cleaning that shit, you know what I saw? I saw the backs of three guys running towards the woods. AND THEN?”

“Oh, I can tell this is going to be good,” Unkar teases trying to snatch the bag from Rose.

Rey just laughs knowing not to stop Rose while she rushes through her frustration.

“NO!” she stops him, using her hands to over accentuate the story. “They wrapped our cars! We have NEVER used more than five or ten dollars here or there for the pranks we’ve pulled off, but them? They went ALL IN.”

“Can I have my cinnamon roll now?”

“Depends, what do you have for me?”

“Give me the pastry and we’ll come up with something. You need to find out who they are first. Can’t be targeting the wrong house.”

Rose tosses him his treat and leaves being that she’s already late for the beginning of her shift.

Both Unkar and Rey look at each other and then down to their breakfast when Rey starts to laugh.

“Never thought you would be knee deep in their camp wars, did you?”

“Oh—I’m pretty sure it’s not just me to blame. You can be just as bad. Your sarcasm knows no bounds,” Unkar shoves the rest of his treat in his mouth, licking his fingers clean. “Come on, Dad’s going to be pissy if we don’t get started.”

____

The three of them message each other throughout the day in a group text.

Rose-  
Ok.  
I found out what house it is.  
lol

It was Rose’s opening every time. She always wrote like that. It didn’t matter if it was a serious conversation or if it was something short and sweet. Three messages would always come from her.

Unkar-  
What is it with you and threes?

Rose-  
What?

Unkar-  
You struggled with that message. I know it.

Rose-  
No.  
I did just fine.  
See?

Rey-  
You just did it again.

Rose-  
Ugh!  
Why does it matter?  
lol

Unkar-  
Looooooooooooolllllll

Rose-  
O_O  
What!?

Rey-  
Just tell her.

Unkar-  
You tell her. It was YOUR observation.

Rey-  
Fine… Rose. When you text, the bubbles look like you’re sending a bunch of dicks.

Silence.

“I think I broke her,” Rey smirks as she puts her phone back into her pocket.

“Or she found something to do.”

“Or she’s in trouble.”

“Yea I think that’s more like it. What do you think its for this time?”

“No idea. She just admitted to using everything we’ve ever said as a prank to the opposing team.”

“You mean the guys? Its not really a team.”

“Girls versus guys is a normal group to verse so I see it as teams.”

“Is it though? I mean they have had an unfair advantage.”

“You think the same as me. There’s no way one dude is going to change your team.”

“My team? I don’t even go to camp…”

“Maybe not yet.”

“What do you mean not yet? I’m nineteen. Never went, never going.”

“Never say never, Rey.”

Just then Unkar’s parents came through with the settlement papers. They were being bought out. It was time… but where exactly did the time go?

“Hey, Unkar? Rey? Can I see you guys a moment?”

Unkar’s father was slightly taller than him but a wisp of a man. He dropped a lot of weight over the last year and it was just better for them to sell instead of struggle with the business and his treatments.

“First of all, Rey, I want to thank you for the last few years you’ve worked here. I, we really couldn’t have done as much as we have with out you…”

“But?”

“But I have to let you go. I can pay you until Friday.... I’m sure you know we’ve been bought out. I don’t know how soon they’re going to tear it down, or any of the details, but, I should tell you we’ll be leaving too.”

His words hung in the air like a foul stench. It wasn’t fair. Unkar and their family have always been there for Rey. Okay, her friends were good to her, but Unkar, he was like a brother to her. Its why she knew what he was thinking before he opened his mouth. It was why they worked so well together. Being ten years a part in age didn’t matter, they were just on the level. So when Rey finally could move enough to nod, she knew Unkar was doing the same.

“Will I ever see you guys again?” she whispers her question.

“Oh, honey,” Unkar’s mother rounded her husband carefully, offering her a hug. “You know you can always call us. We’ll be far but we’ll always be together. You know that right?”

Rey blinks back tears and looks up for Unkar to say anything at all, but he too was having his own problems with the news. She watches him scrub his face and offer the same sentiment.

“You know you can always text me… and we can jack with Rose as we have… it’ll be like I never left.”

Rey can only bob her head in agreement.

Speaking of Rose, both of their phones ping at the same time.

Rose-  
I got the house.  
It’s the third one.  
What you got for me?  
HA!  
Does that look like a dick?

“Oh, Rose.” Unkar ground out a few lines of text asking her to find out more than that. 

They needed more.

It took her all day to do. Finishing up their last few moments in the shop, Unkar had to say his last physical goodbye to his friends but the girls took him out instead. Their version of out was not his. He figured he would grab a drink by himself and go watch the sunset before he packed up for the night.

Rose had another idea. He would help her on a recon mission. 

Revenge!

“You’re a guy. All you have to do is tell them that Amylin sent you to report there for the night until they get you a proper bunk at the first house. It is all you have to say.” Rose emphasizes every word.

“I’m not going to camp.”

“Please?!”

“Look at me Rose. Do I really pass as a kid in my twenties? Send Rey.”

“Ohhhhh no. I am not doing that. I can’t pass as a guy! Look at me! There is a section of me that juts out…do you not see them?”  
   
Unkar groans trying to look away.

“Hey man!”

A few more calls in his direction from other guys suggest they’re talking to Unkar even though he did not want to play along.

Rose grins wildly. “This is our shot! Go!!”

“Ugh is that Rose?” Rose can clearly hear the ginger’s disgruntled voice across the field.

“That’s Artmitage but they all call each other by their last names. He’s Hux. That asshole filled my shampoo with that gak shit they used to sell in the nineties. I had to shave my head. The dickhead next to him is Dameron. DO NOT believe anything that shmuck says. Once, I repeated one of his stories and was on garbage duty for the rest of the week for spreading a wild rumor about another councilor. There are a few more this year and some new guy, Solo. I haven’t met him but they usually idiots together. Trust no one.”

“So I shouldn’t trust you?”

“Oh my God, do not—”

“Do not what?” Hux made it down to their group, assessing their little pow-wow.

Rose narrows her eyes at the redhead in question.

“Well, what do we have here?”

Rey looks him over, assessing his preppy gear as an overall indication of how snobby this one may be. It’s a pity, really. Aside from his snide demeanor, he was sort of good looking.

Her action isn’t missed. Hux takes a second to size her up but before he can Unkar clears his throat, leading the kid back to the house and following Rose’s plan to the tee.

“What the hell was that?”

“You mean you didn’t notice that Hux knows I’m not a guy?” Rey rolls her eyes as Unkar would. “I have no idea.”

Unkar is no dummy. He’s managed to turn his phone on video and records the whole visit from where his phone sits in his chest pocket. On his recon mission not only does he get the layout of the house, the guys faces and names to the ones that live there, as well as what they like to do. It was a gold mine. Unkar smiles to himself figuring Rose would have enough to work with.

“We’ve already had dinner. I don’t suppose you’ve eaten,” Hux fails to ask the question but Unkar answers that he has before he came. He also makes them aware of a few things too like where his bags were and why he was out in the field with Rose with obvious and calculated ease, telling him that it was Amylin who told her to give him the tour.

“I see. She still must be getting hers from the last stunt they pulled.”

“Stunt?” Unkar was dying for this information. What on earth did that little thing do?”

“Yea—it seems the girls can’t keep away from us. They’re always giving us hell. Last week they changed all of our condiments to sriracha sauce, except for mustard, and you know, salt and whatever dry ones…” Hux trailed only to start back up again. “Well, my mouth burned for days after that, and its not like that cleans up easy either. I went to and the remnants of it bled into my skin so when I’d wipe my eyes I would go back through it again.”

The one Rose called Dameron starts laughing. “That was bad, but also your fault.”

“Yea? What about the time she sent that drone right into the wasps nest over the deck? Was that my fault?”

A pained sigh came out of Dameron that time.

“No…”

“What about the time she changed your sunscreen to cream cheese?”

Unkar remembers that one. It was during a snarky one upping battle between Rey and himself. He had to hand it to her, sour cream and unscented tooth paste were two funny ones too, but cream cheese won it seemed. He shout-laughed hard for that one, if he had been needing to clear out any growing inhabitance in his nose he would have shot snot rockets all over their living space while trying and failing to keep it in.

“Is this funny to you?” Hux inquires.

“Absolutely…” he wipes his face realizing the attitude shift in the room. “Not. Absolutely not. What um, what have you been doing in retaliation?” 

He knew to a point but there was something he could feel that was going on behind the scenes that Rose may or may not have shared with him. He wasn’t sure. Unmarked believed it was best to get all the details.

Dameron offers him a soda and tells him to find a seat. 

“This has been going on for years. It all started when one of the guys here,” Dameron puts his hands up to tell him that it wasn’t them and not even their generation. “This is years ago, all of the guys went to the girl’s cabins one night to go piss on their beds. The ones we sleep on, they aren’t wrapped like the ones that the kids have downstairs, so they stunk like piss all throughout the summer. It’s been pretty much war ever since.”

“You guys are idiots,” Unkar says.

“It wasn’t us!”

“But you continue to retaliate.”

“Yea.”

“Why?”

“Because its fun.”

“You’re still an idiot.” He takes a sip of, ugh, ginger ale wondering why this was the go to for drinks. “What have you done so far?”

“Yesterday we cylophaned their house and cars. Best hundred dollars I ever spent.”

Unkar chewed his lip trying terribly hard not to call them idiots again but if they were doing this for fun and couldn’t figure out how to stop, then fine. He would give the girls all the ammunition they needed.

Before yesterday, they owned up to releasing cave crickets in their living space. There were times they had broken in to steal clothes, take the handles off of the shower and sink, “ oh and remember the time we stuffed one of those lifelike snakes in the toilet?” asks Dameron. 

“Yeah, it didn’t stop them from sticking all those used pads all over my car though,” Hux whined. 

“At least it wasn’t in the car,” Unkar defends.

“It wasn’t blood though. Girl you were dating confirmed it was lipstick.”

“Still has you seeing red— literally,” Dameron laughs.

Commentary seems to calm down as a tall kid makes his way to join the group. He offers a nod and sits on the couch without a word.

For the next two hours they watch the rest of a baseball game and play darts, and listen to Hux and Dameron run their mouths about who’s better with their games.

Unkar’s phone vibrates three times in his pocket making him discretely take his phone out to check it as he always would. He sat back, shifting about in his seat, stretching out his legs comfortably before responding. This doesn’t go unseen by the others who call him over asking him to play next game.

“Who’re’ya talking to?” Dameron tries shouldering into him for a peak.

Keeping his calm, Unkar places his hand on Dameron’s shoulder, pushing him slowly off of him, stopping only at his maximum reach.

“Well?” Dameron presses rolling from his hold.

“My girlfriend,” he lies.

“Ooooh,” he teases. “Anyone we would know?”

“Doubtful.”

“Got a picture?”

“Not that I’m sharing.”

“Touchy...”

Unkar noticed tall kid didn’t have anything to add to the conversation, got up and moved towards the bedrooms, turning in for the night. Unkar wonders if he’s a basket case like the other two, or if he just wanted no part of this. Hux and Dameron though, they go on, one upping the other trying to come up with lame pranks for retaliation when Unkar slips, adding to the fire.

Well shit... he thinks. That was not the plan.

Dameron flies off to find his phone to record everything Unkar’s so willingly offered, not once supposing he was being sarcastic. What is it with kids today? They could not understand what sarcasm was. Instead he had Dameron taking down stupid shit like replacing the tampons in the vending machines with push pops, replacing pillows with sandbags because sand gets everywhere. He made mention to how much they liked their food and could see how crazy Rose would be it they ever managed to screw with that but couldn’t back down now...

“That’ll be a tough one,” Hux throws his last dart at the board. “We can buy food that can be stored in the house, but cooked food that can’t be done in the microwave is at the cafeteria.”

“Oh, so you don’t really have a way to...”

“Oh, I have my ways,” smirked Hux while he pulls the darts from the board. “What I don’t quite understand is how you have all these ideas for getting back at someone you don’t know.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of having a girlfriend,” Unkar’s words roll off his loosened tongue. “If you paid attention to girls, you’d learn a thing or two.”

———

Lingering on the couch until all of the guys have gone to sleep, Unkar gets up stealthily, moving over to the box by the wall. He has no idea how long the girls have on gathering the mold and materials for their end of the joke, so he takes the darts instead of the whole case.

Their conversation had to be muted from his phone due to the guys’ suspicion, but it still plays in his mind while he makes these pointed decisions.

Rose-  
I found molds  
You’ll never guess what they look like  
Guess. Omg.

Rey-  
🙄

Rose-  
You’re with me!  
I can’t believe they’re chocolate molds.  
How long is a dart?  
😂😂😂

Rey-  
Google it. Probably like four inches.

Rose-  
😂😂😂  
I think I peed a little.  
Ok.  
Now... I need to know what are we going with because I don’t want to spend my paycheck on this.  
Is it feasible to just do ice?

Rey-  
Are you serious?

Rose—  
??

Rey-  
Ice will melt. What about chocolate? Those melting wafers are here.

Rose-  
Nah. Can’t waist the goods.

Unkar-  
what did you get?

Rey-  
Don’t ask.

Rose-  
It’s a toss up between two molds.

Rey-  
Don’t send him the picture.

Rose-  
(Picture sent)

Rose has managed to find molds shaped like genitalia. 

Unkar groans. 

Unkar-  
Twats aren’t going to work for two reasons.  
1\. These guys are dicks.

Rose actually waits for number two but he never writes it. It’s his way of controlling her to a point. He didn’t need to see it. 

As odd as their friendship has been, he knew he’d miss her. That was a new thought. Maybe it came when he referenced her just before as his. Whatever the matter was, he did his best to ignore it. 

It’s an easy snatch and strangely, even easier retreat back outside. Unkar didn’t care though. He was met with the cool evening air as he trotted down the front steps of the cabin down onto the concrete path he left hours before. It’s as if Rose had a motion detector on him that his phone goes off yet again giving directions on where to meet them.

“Well?” Rose leans in.

“I may have to shorten it but I have information…” Unkar waves his phone back and forth with the video playing for full effect.

“YOU ARE AMAZING!” Rose hops up and down. “Send that to me! I need it now!!”

____

“These are the molds we agreed on,” Rose says pulling the bright pink trays out of her bag. 

They are _made_ for chocolate but after a long debate over what would be funnier to cast around the darts, soap won out over all. Rey, made the winning argument, explaining that they couldn’t just eat through soap, won.

“All they’d have to do is bite through it if it were chocolate. At least soap would pay off. I can see it now...Hux’ll have everyone rubbing them down to avoid breaking them with brute force.” 

Rose lost it. 

These weren’t being made for a bunch of women at a bachelorette party... they were going back to house three! She would try to breathe between laughing fits, her eyes tear and can’t help the hiccups that set in.

“Soap it is!” Rose spouts and then the hard question. “How do you make soap?”

By the time Unkar makes it back with them, he pulls out six darts from his pocket wondering if they were going to completely jack with them, pouring the mold to either the tip or flights. 

The girls just look at him.

“Prick or flags?”

“Prick, obviously,” Rose sets the darts in the molds pouring them as she explains her thought process. “I want this to be an everlasting annoyance. Serves them right after all.”

Unkar blows a steadying breath, adding what he may or may not have given the competition.

“Are you serious? “Because sand gets everywhere?!” That’s what you ran with??”

———-

Later that evening the three of them walk back to Unkar’s apartment. It was Rey and Unkar’s job to make sure Rose could watch the video without walking out into traffic or into a lamp post.

“So I see a couple things we can openly mess with.”

“Shouldn’t it be a small thing?”

“It sounds like you have an idea.”

Unkar sucks in his lip trying to hold the thought from the little hellraiser to the side of him. They all know now that the guys were never going to stop, so retaliation over the years seemed like the only way.

“I might.”

“That is a yes. Say it with me, ‘Yes, Rose, I do.’”

Rey smiles sadly knowing that they were running out of time with her friend. His quick wit and sarcasm has been top notch getting her through her hardest days. Not even Rose truly understood it. Their friendship was just _different_.

“Why don’t you do something subtle to get them off your trail. Make it look like another house or even just use that woman from the front office as your scapegoat.”

“Who? Holdo?”

“Yea, play the long game.”

“Like what?”

“Have them hold stuff for her. How much are boxes these days? They would be stupid to open a taped box, especially with …Holdo’s name on it.”

“I like where your mind is going but what would I put in it? I can’t spend a lot on this. I’m at like ten dollars max.”

“Why don’t you do it with small things?” Rey jumps in. “It would have to be odorless… or smell like her. Does she have a fragrance?”

“Oh God, does she?” Rose throws her head back and Unkar pushes her into Rey just before she runs into a telephone pole. She has the common decency to thank them each time. 

“Okay I need a follow up. After this weird little dumpy collection is going on. Besides _this_. It’s gotta be something… something good.”

_____

Rose’s plans fell through for the rest of the night being that it was time to say goodbye. No good would come of it if Rey didn’t get time to process this with him. Rose causally wished Unkar and his family well before sitting on the side wall waiting for Rey to wrap it up too. It is hard for her to watch so she dives into thought, coming up with plans for boxes and other ideas through the summer.

“You’re going to be fine, Rey,” Unkar says with a sad smile. “How long ‘you been working with us?”

“A while,” she sighs looking up at the stars.

Unkar lets out a knowing humf doing the same. It had been a while and in all that time, as much as she let her sarcasm fill it, he knew that she needed something besides him to lean on for a while.

“You know, you’re a good worker and all, but if I could give you a piece of advice… I’d tell you to go enjoy the remainder of your childhood.”

“My childhood? I’m _nineteen_ ,” Rey snorts.

“And still a kid.”

Rey gapes at him but shuts her mouth. 

“You know when the two of you first came around…”

“And you were being a hardass?”

“The very same…” 

Unkar pushes Rey as they always had just to knock her a little off balance. 

“I used to live through you guys… all the dumb stuff you did, the dumb stuff you still do… It makes me feel like I never truly missed those years. Like, I’m getting to do them again.”

“You’re making yourself sound like you’re a hundred years old.”

“Aren’t I though?”

“You’re _only ten_ years older than me.”

“—and yet I’ve had to be responsible this whole time, growing up fast to help my family.” 

Unkar lifts his eyebrows trying to keep the conversation light when he turns to her. 

“My point is, I might not be here, but that doesn’t mean you stop living your life the way you want to. I know what you come from and why you were drawn to our family… but its time for you to find your own path and have fun doing it. I hear they’re always looking for new bodies, I mean, councilors at that camp.”

Rey sighs accepting what he had to say.

“I assume you’ll want a report.”

Unkar can’t stop his spreading grin.

“Constantly until those bastards are taken down a notch. Actually, I want them to beg for mercy!”

_____

 

It's been a few weeks since Unkar and his family left. The business was sold and taken down to make a Starbucks that she promises never to support. No wonder the Plutts needed to leave right away. They basically came _the_ moment the Unkar’s family left and destroyed their business within the hour. 

It irks Rey that bigger businesses can’t remember a time when they were small. Although, Unkar’s family did well for themselves, they weren’t a chain. They had nothing but what was there on their lot and the loyal customers that came in frequently.

Today, Rey tinkers in a workshop with campers and a few councilors she’s met once or twice. There’s a possibility they’ve met up all week, and she still can’t remember their names. Instead she works diligently on creating a lanyard which she can’t believe they’re passing as a necessary skill. Never once did she think about colored wires being looped into knots. It sounded like an electrical fire waiting to happen.

Most of her day was spent on showing Unkar her projects. That is, if she could count sacking river stones, one on top of the other or doing handstands with the group next to a concrete wall for hours as projects.

Maybe they were “activities”.

Yeah, that sounded right.

Rey began to wonder what it was about camp that Unkar thought could be fun aside from jacking with the male staff? What was it he missed out on?

Texting him was different now too. He hung out in their group chat but rarely said anything. The fact of the matter made her salty. He cheerfully pushed her aside that night, but she didn’t think much of it. Did she lose him too?

“Hey? Girl?” some guy’s voice seemed to be calling to someone that couldn’t possibly be her so she ignored him.

She hears heavy footsteps trample through the grass which crumples under him as he sits down next to her. Rey’s eyes go wide at the sight of him, her first and only thought is how big he is.

“Who, me?”

The kids around the table respond to their conversation as if it was a line out of the cookie jar.

“Who me? Couldn’t be…”

Rey rolls her eyes at it and goes back to knotting her regurgitated rainbow string.

“You’re … You’re new here aren’t you?”

Rey looks up again trying terribly hard not to be annoyed with this person. 

But then he covers her lanyard with his large hand to get her to stop and focus on him.

She looks down at it while he introduces himself, unable to say a word. Who has hands _this_ big? Did a house fall from the sky and flatten them? Rey can nearly hear Unkar in her mind but is broken from her thoughts when he starts talking.

“I’m Ben,” he pauses expecting her to give her name. When she doesn’t, he grimaces but doesn’t move his hand. “I’m new too. I just… I just thought we had something in common.”

They sit in silence once more until Ben lifts his hand in defeat. Suddenly she misses his contact, her hands are so much cooler now. Rey sees it in slow motion, his movement to get back up to his feet, readying himself to leave when Rey finally gives her name. She doesn’t expect that he would stop and her name feels like its not quite made its target. 

Fine. 

That’s fine.

“Rey?” Ben tests her name.

“Yes?”

Ben nods and cards his fingers though his hair before offering her help to stand. For a second she takes in his features as if he’s a project, she handles his once over in record time, hoping he didn’t notice. 

Ben is... good looking, she rolls her eyes accepting this. She’s draw to a couple of things. He’s fit for one, which blast her damned mind, Unkar was not. She couldn’t believe she went there, but if happened. Ben’s shy smile and his soft brown eyes were next on her list of things she likes. But more than anything, her favorite is the possibility that he might actually be a nice guy.

Boy, was she in trouble. 

“We’re all going to lunch and I wondered if you wanted to join me.”

Before she could think, Rey agreed to it.

“Let me just grab my bag,” supposing they all did the same.

“What’d you bring?” he eyes it curiously.

“Peanut butter sandwich and whatever was left out of the pantry.”

Ben had the nerve to laugh. He laughed at her. What the hell?  
   
“Oh, and I suppose you have a flank steak grilling out back with loaded potatoes and caramel onions…”  
   
Ben laughed a little harder this time making her wonder if he took to sarcasm like Unkar. Rey knew not to over do it even if the target was laughing. Her dry humor was charming enough but being obnoxious seems to be only a half step away at times.

“Well, it isn’t flank steak, but its certainly better than whatever the girls gave you. Who lives off of this stuff?”

“Pff, clearly you’ve never heard of a period diet.”

Surprisingly, Ben was not deterred. In quite possibly the cutest way a man has ever looked at her, he counters.

“I had no idea periods had to diet. I do suppose they are quiet round and stubby.”

Rey’s quick wit found herself flying down a steep mental hill wondering what he meant by periods being round and stubby. Her brow furrows as she figures it out, shifting her gears fast enough to keep her from flying off the hypothetical cliff.

Rey’s laugh filled the air before she could think better of it.

And just like that she was hooked.

They could be friends.

The only trouble was that she remembers him, his face at least. He was in house three. He knew about Rose’s pranks and their house’s retaliation. All of it. But how much does he know?

Rey’s phone vibrates in threes in her back pocket pulling her from her thoughts. Ben keeps talking until he sees her occupied fighting the urge to take the dumb thing so she’d be back to paying attention to him.

“Who’s that?” he can’t help the way he sound.

“Who?” Rey doesn’t look up from her phone, grinning through her response.

“Who you’re talking to? Anyone I know?”

“Why? You afraid I have a cute boyfriend?” Rey’s cheeks heat as soon as she challenges him.

Ben’s eyes meet hers in surprise. Finding the courage to challenge her back. He stares at her, carefully. Quietly, he closes the space between them with his eyes fixed on hers. Ben notices how flustered he’s gotten her in their proximity and uses it to his benefit, snatching her phone from her open hands.

Her shock is apparent. Feeling as if she had just been towel whipped.

“Oi!” Rey squeals, running after that Goliath of a man for her phone.

Ben could practically fly, but if Rey could do anything, running was it. She could run for miles, sprints, hurtles, no matter what, Rey excelled. She would get her phone back.

Ben is smart.

He thinks he is at least.

Ben kept moving his finger across the screen too keep it from locking. He’d switch direction, running down the field, gaining a lead reading one or two messages from Rose, none of which helped him with the boyfriend inquiry.

Rose-  
This day...  
B  
Lows  
^^  
Does that constitute as needle dick?  
Lol

Rey omg  
can you just text me?  
Lol

Ben scrolls through more trying to understand when Rey runs right into his midsection hoping to tackle him. Instead she whines in pain, bracing her arms around his waist. Her face just missing his ass.

“Oh,” she groans, “What are you? Made of steel?”

Ben’s grin widens cheerfully accepting her unrealized comment lifting the hem of his shirt just enough to confirm just _how_ ripped he is. He didn’t miss the way she sucked in her breath, catching her lower lip with her teeth. Ben tried to suppress the groan he felt building as she blew it back out considering her options. 

His grip on the phone loosens giving Rey the opening she needs to snatch it back. But not, of course, without her own little bit of revenge.

Rey pulls herself up from him, running her fingertips just under his soft cotton shirt, she says, “Even the strongest can break.”

Ben doesn’t move. His breath hitches and holds it for a beat long enough to forget to about her phone. He watches the girl take it right from his fumbling fingers in slow motion, like an out of body experience, only to return when she asks, “Now, what’s for lunch?”

_____

The guys’ houses are mirror images in terms of layout. Old, definitely fifty plus years in the making, but sturdy enough as far as cabins go. The only thing out of place is her is that everyone she saw in the video Unkar took was staring at her. 

Rey hated that growing up. It’s part of the reason why she was so drawn to the Plutts. Unkar’s mother could roll through her sarcasm like it was her native language, bringing anyone to their knees. She was so quick witted Rey often wondered if she was just joking or if it changed her view on the world. It taught her to handle where she was, even if it was uncomfortable.

It’s not like they had an easy life. That much was true, but they seemed to always know what to say to make the other laugh. Anyone that couldn’t was shrugged off. It seemed to work back then, so why not now?

Correcting her posture, Rey stood eye level with the majority of them making sure they understood she was not to be messed with. She didn’t see herself as just a girl from the rivaling side of the camp. She saw her time there as a temporary. She’d be leaving soon because having a childhood already seemed to be overrated. Lanyards and popsicle stick art didn’t seem to call out to her as a plausible reason to stay.

Ben lead her around the living space pointing out where the bathroom and bedrooms were, his face flamed when he realized she doesn’t really need to know that. Of course it doesn’t go unnoticed by one of the guys. Hux. Rey thinks of Rose and the night before.

“Already thinking with your dick I see...”

“Do you?” Rey slips. All she was after today was food and maybe some more time with Ben. But...it’s Hux...

“Do I what?”

“Think about his dick?”

It’s Hux’s turn to blush and Rey doesn’t relent, careful, of course, with her words.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

The ginger can’t help but scowl at her.

“Are you suggesting I want to see another man’s appendage?”

“I’m pretty sure you did. I mean if that’s what you’re into, that’s fine. I’m not going to judge,” she shrugs.

Another guy emerges from the stairwell and Rey recognizes him too: Trooper. He seemed harmless from the video. All smiles, silly, what she imagines a normal guy is like. He giggles and she assumes he’s heard some of the conversation as he’s referring to Hux as such as well.

“Oh go eat a...”

“Is this all you talk about?” Rey inquires unable to let it go. Maybe it had something to do with how much she missed Unkar, he like his mother could run with it, always leaving her impressed. Whatever the case, she pressed Hux’s buttons for another half hour until he gave up.

Ben, who thought he had been replaced, zoned out in a lawn chair with a burger I hand, still carefully picking at it, hoping there were no bees in it.

“If you’re done, there’s food...” he calls over his shoulder looking longingly through the screen door at the deck.

“Why the long face?” Rey asks, her... what should she call him? Are they friends?

Ben grumbles, “I don’t have a long face.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“Yes you did.”

“It’s a saying, weirdo. You’re completely proportionate,” Rey clears her voice trying to hide the sentiment there. “That is...”

Ben Rolls his eyes expecting a shit comment about his nose or his racquet sized hands. It isn’t his fault he’s big.

“All but your hair.”

“My hair?”

“It’s far too long... and parted too far to the side to be proportionate,” she says reaching for it.

Ben stops her, grasping her tiny wrist in his hold. The very action makes him very aware of her intentions, but they aren’t as clear as he thought they were when he feels her other hand drag his mop onto his eyes. A strange sense of calm comes over him that she didn’t expose his ears, instead he tenses when he hears a low buzzing around one of them.

It registers as a bee and his quick motion away from it throws her backwards.

“What?”

Ben stands quickly, looking for it.

“One of the kids that lives downstairs is allergic. We’ve been trying to handle the bee problem,” he sends her a dirty look she hopes is just out of context, “that the girls created earlier this month, crashing the damned drone into the hive.”

Ok. That was Unkar’s, she shrinks where she stands.

“Where is it?”

“Where is what?”

“The rest of the hive? Clearly there would be one if they are trying to stay—“

“The remnants, _that they are just dying to reconstruct_ , are on the overhang just outside the door. It’s why we’re not sitting out there.”

“Wait, you cook out there? I thought that was against the rules.”

Ben’s eyes unfocus assuming she heard nothing of what he just said. 

“Yes and yes. It’ll be a girly thing to tattle.” Ben lifts his eyebrow in her direction making a generalized silent comment about no more food offerings in the future. 

Rey nods asking if she can come back later.

“But you haven’t eaten.”

“Just let me come back?”

“Why?”

“To fix your problem?”

“And what problem is that?” snorts the one they call Dameron.

“None of your business, Poe,” Ben warns.

“Oh—I think it is,” he grins at the girl beside him.

“You sounds like a predator when you say it like that.”

Poe puffs all the air out of his lungs hearing his buddy’s warning.

“You know you’re messed up man. That is _not_ how it was meant.”

Rey shakes her head, looking at her phone in the process. A message from Rose confirmed it was time, and then another wondering where she was.

“Alright. I’ll come back around seven?”

“But,” Ben says softly as if he really was just asking her to be over to spend time with her.

“I’ll remember to lock up,” Hux interrupts at her glare.

“Are you allowed to leave?”

“There’s a curfew.”

That’s right... 

That was in the handbook she barely read.

Rey nods, “See you at seven.”

———

Rey can’t help the butterflies in her stomach. Ben was so nice, warm and sweet, and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It was a shame really that he was in Rose’s retaliation war. A relationship with the enemy would never do... but why did she feel she needed this in her life? Him? What is he to her exactly? And how did this bond seem to start from thin air?

“Hey! Where were you?”

“With Ben, er, I mean Solo. ‘Said something about needing help with the bees later.”

“Solo?...”

That messed her up.

“So you’re saying you were in their house? And you still want to go back and help?” Rose can’t help the scandalous look on her face.

“I’m not clarifying this again.“

They already had this conversation when she got in. 

“Alright, alright...” Rose tightens her ponytail. “Did you see if the boxes got there?”

Rey grins. These jokes are fine. They can’t get hurt with random packages. 

Wait. 

Is she worried about their safety? Or just one in particular?

“What should I take that as? A full house or should I send more?”

The two laugh as if it were even a question.

———

Rey made good on her promise, knocking on their door to be granted access.

Hux, of course, opens the door to her but stands unmoving in the frame.

“I thought you said you’d lock the doors.”

“I did, but I couldn’t miss this. What are you supposed to be anyway? Halloween is four months from now.”

“That’s disrespectful,” Rey was wearing her helmet, her face shield still drawn, burgundy tank top from today, leather jacket, and charcoal colored cargo pants. They had multiple purposes. One pocket to deliver the goods, the other to handle the mess with the bees. On her feet she has her ‘go to’ work boots that have seen better days.

“You look like a confused biker chick.”

Rey steps forward, lifting her visor only to look over Hux’s shoulder, whispering so only he could hear. 

“Why don’t we find out just how confused I am?” 

“Close the door!” one of the guys shouts. “You’re letting bugs in!”

Rey doesn’t bother taking her helmet off. Instead, she casually asks for things in their cabinet, taking items from both pockets to nonchalantly place the darts back in the box unseen. She asks them for simple things like string and water with sugar in it and have the three of them rushing around looking for everything, even the bag she asks for. 

They of course, don’t have the simple things, making it a little harder. Rey pulls out stuff from her deep pockets. A spray bottle to dump the soda they gave her in place of sugar water into, then the can of smoke to slow them, and finally a construction bag to cover it with while she tries to remove it. 

Her plan only worked one other time and even that was a stretch. Who knew if it would work this time. All she could do was hope for the best. The hive itself didn’t look too active during the day but is possible that it’s in the house if they’re really trying to remake the hive.

It was a possibility she had to plan for. 

Rey lowers her visor and moves towards the deck as if she’s the only one in the building. It takes her less than an hour and she’s sporting a few visible welts, but she’s is happy to note that the hive has been taken care of.

“If you hear any more or have a feeling they’re in the house, you’ll have to get a professional to smoke them out,” she says leaving down the back steps. “And that isn’t the girl’s fault.”

Ben, who didn’t want to chance going outside in the event there were still bees swarming the area, stared at her through the sliding door. Hux rolls his eyes but turned on the deck light so she could make it down the stairs without falling. Poe and Finn charged outside, finally enjoying the deck, calling for Rey’s attention as she left. Thank you s were heard long into the night up until lights out.

It makes her smile, finally being able to remove her helmet as she walks back to see Rose.

_______

The darts were found that night. While Ben did his best to defend her, Hux was not having it.

“There’s no way she could have done this in the ten minutes she was in the house.”

“But she was over there!”

“What if these aren’t even darts?”

“These are my fucking darts,” Hux points at the flights he had custom designed.

Dameron laughs, clears his throat and starts up again.

Trooper can’t help himself, adding, “At least they kept them aerodynamic.”

“What the fu—“ Hux is interrupted mid sentence.

“She could have put the flights at the tip instead.”

“And what good would that of done?”

“It would have been harder to get off.”

The silence before their laughter was piercing. Hux could have killed him. Instead he made them figure out how to remove the soap without having to “rub off” the soaps.

“They’re going to pay for this!” Hux grumbles.

——-

Over the next few weeks their jokes escalate when Hux can’t deal with the boxes anymore. The guys and their campers decided to bring all of the packages back to Holdo to tell her there’s just not enough room to keep it all in the cabin. Rose had bagged grass clippings stuffed in some larger boxes, and unopened paper in others to help with the weight. She said it was to make it seem more real. Because of it, Holdo called all the houses down to the main field to assess it... of course that’s when Unkar decided to start talking to them again, eliciting some of the most hilarious sounds Rey’s ever heard come from her friend.

That got her house in trouble.

Of course the guys gloated but they were far from finished.

Rey slinked away from the crowd, back to the line of trees at the other side of the field. There she typed away as fast as her fingers could, afraid her friend would disappear again if she stopped. There she could hold on.

Rey-  
Rose got caught.

Unkar-  
You mean you guys got caught.

Rey-  
No.

Unkar-  
If you have to add her in the sentence, you’re caught too.

Rey-  
Alright. You got me.  
You’re wrong by the way. Childhood is overrated. Stressful at best.

Unkar-  
How so? You haven’t been there for more than a month. Give it time. You’ll see. It can’t be all bad.

Rey-  
Where did this lighter side of you come from?

Unkar-  
(...)

His typing would start and stop, restart and stop again.

“Well that’s just great. I’m sure glad we got to catch up,” she mutters.

Unkar-  
Parents.

Rey-  
How are they?  
How’s Dad?  
Mom?

Unkar-  
Ok. Doing good.

Rey-  
That bad?  
Can I call you?

Rey calls.

“Hey kid.”

“Hey you... what um...” she croaks. “What happened to Dad?”

Unkar remains silent, except for his sighs, the ones he usually uses in place of the words he doesn’t want to speak.

“He’s okay, right?”

“They gave him about a month. He’s stubborn about his meds—mom’s all upset—and you know how she gets when she’s,” he pauses listening to his mother run her mouth in the background.

“You better go. Just—whatever happens, you know I’m here right?”

“Yeah kid. Yeah. Listen, if this isn’t what you want, change it. Go live your life. Okay?”

“Yeah...”

Kid.

“ I know you’re there,” Rey says in an even tone. She felt his presence the moment she wished to be alone. She wasn’t though. Not even now, when she wanted to be.

“Sorry,” Ben stepped carefully around the tree that hid him from view. “You were just gone for a while.”

“You were there since I crossed the tree line.”

“You knew?”

“Heightened senses,” she points at herself, “Comes with unbridled sarcasm.”

Ben loses his train of thought while Rey fidgets with the ground beneath her, searching for anything at all to say.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” she raises her eyebrow at him.

“For getting rid of the bees. I hate them. Ever since I was a kid I’ve hated them,” he shifts back and forth from one foot to another not knowing what else to say.

Rey nods again, “I suppose your camper isn’t the one allergic?”

“That would be right.”

“Well then I suppose I owe you an apology then.” 

Ben only listens, curiously, a frown crosses his brow while she tells him.

“Oo woah, don’t look at me like that. Just because Rose can’t take a joke, or just let you win and move on, doesn’t mean I’m entirely the one to blame. You guys _did_ retaliate. If I’m not mistaken, I believe you all started this fight.”

“I wasn’t even here... what do you mean can’t take a joke?”

Rey’s phone buzzes three times but doesn’t answer it. She knows it’s Rose. Again it goes off, and then a third time...so she finally bites the bullet seeing messages from Rose.

Rose-  
I got them.  
Well Kaydel did.  
Lol

There’s more with her arguing with herself about where to find a place to make copies and finally she

“So, who were you talking to?”

Rey frowns.

“On the phone...” he tries to clarify.

“It’s Rose.”

“No I mean...”

She frowns again.

“You don’t have to tell me it’s fine.”

“I don’t exactly know what to call him. He is and isn’t really my family.”

Ben assesses her carefully, unsure of what to say.

“My parents passed when I was a kid. The Plutts were my neighbors. His, Unkar’s mom used to baby sit me.” Rey shrugs. “She took me on without a second thought, so I guess you’d call Unkar my brother?” Rey stayed seated in the opposite direction flinching when he came up behind her to sit beside her, unsure of whether he should extend his arm so he rests them on his knees.

“His dad,”

“Your dad?”

“Please don’t. I’ve already lost one. I don’t know if I can handle another,” she swallows.

Ben nods.

“He isn’t well.”

Ben’s inhale stops her forward thinking. Instead she feels his arm wrap around her back encouraging her to accept a hug. When she leans into his embrace she thinks she’s heard him hush her sigh.

“Thank you,” she whispers still finding it strange that there’s compassion here. 

Here. 

At this camp...with a guy she’s supposed to hate because he’s a guy. 

“I think you might be the nicest guy I’ve ever met.”

His head bobs, adding, “Do you think you can tell my mom that?”

“Why?” Rey keeps her eyes low.

“I think she’d faint,” the rise and fall of her shoulders makes him smile. He made her laugh again and finds that he likes that sound—he’d do anything to get it.

As they get to talking neither move to get up. Instead they only shift closer, each showing the other pictures and including the other in text conversations between the houses. The laugh together about what has been done, what worked and failed and what they planned for. 

When it was time to go, he helps her up first savoring her look of surprise when he does.

Rey can feel herself getting lost in his eyes when she thanks him. It’s all she can think to do when he rises, closing the space between them once more. As heart raced, Rey was sure he felt the same. They moved as one. The space between them now gone, she finds herself accepting Ben’s tentative request. His lips meet hers softly, melding all of her senses into each other.

Rey’s eyes stay open just long enough to see Ben’s flutter closed. His eyebrows lift and bend when he deepens their kiss. He seems comfortable here. It’s not forced or fake. It all just feels right.

She doesn’t have to say a word. Over the month of catching the other staring, sneaking off to throw stones in the river, or climbing onto the rooftop to drop things on Hux and Dameron they have had time to bond. He’s told her things he’s never said to anyone, and she’s opened up more about work before this. He taught her how to maneuver a canoe and helped her properly mount a hammock without falling off of it. She taught him what tools were for, laughing, of course at his inexperience. She taught him how to ride her bike and found she loved holding onto him when he did find comfort in riding. He did his best not to freak out when she ground the clutch on his mustang, and was even well mannered enough to reassure her that she didn’t have to apologize so much and that they would be an easy fix. 

That made her smile, trying desperately not to call him out on it.

Relationships before whatever this was now never made her feel as cherished like Ben made her feel, and damn it all, she would give him anything to keep him in her life.

Clearly, the other councilors didn’t approve. They’d stare them down, taking no precautions of hiding their choice words towards the new couple.

Rey sees graffiti about them once and then it’s everywhere. Disgusted, and assuming everyone is in on it,she sets off to pack her bags.

Images were carved into houses walls and drawn on bathroom stalls with no indication of slowing. Arguments form there in pen or marker, even scratching into the already peeling paint to add anything to the conversation.

This had to stop but not without consequence. She’d get one last mark that the girls house could hash on their wall on behalf of her. 

Rose had been chomping at the bit to get back at them for their last prank, adding a fair amount of orange dye to their laundry. When it didn’t work all that well, Hux resorted to taking their undergarments. 

Once given the all clear, Rose wouldn’t back down.

Rey-  
Just do it.  
Sooner the better.

Rose-  
Ok.  
What happened that changed your mind?  
Are you leaving?

Rey-  
Tonight.

Rose-  
Oh it’s on!  
But I wish you’d reconsider.  
Rey?

Rey didn’t respond. Instead she looked up at Ben who can’t stop apologizing for other people. He‘s on the verge of losing her. He knows. But he didn’t do it. None of those images were of his doing.

How would the others have known? Ben always made her feel safe, never demanding of anything. He took only what she would give. They were quiet, respectful of each other and the campers, held hands but not each other unless they were behind closed doors. Ben took her out on dates after work. Small things like grabbing a slice at the local pizzeria, or ice cream, or stargazing in a field off campus, she even got him to run around with her in it to collect lightning bugs. 

What was so wrong about that?

She though she felt a future past the summer, past this place with him.

Was she wrong?

Rey asks despite the burning she feels in her chest, “Was this? Was this a prank too? What we had in the woods? And in the last few weeks? Was it some way to get back at the girls?”

Ben ran his fingers through his hair promising she was never a target. 

“What we shared. That was real. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”

“Then why is this happening? Why is there graffiti everywhere about ‘how I like it?’” she hisses.

“It was not me!”

“It didn’t have to be you! All you had to do was make an effort to stop them...” Rey shoves past him to her bike. “And you didn’t did you?”

“No! Wait...” 

Rey starts the engine so she can’t hear him over it, situating her helmet, she flicks on the headlights. He doesn’t expect her to go. Maybe she’ll stop. Maybe she’ll understand.

But she goes, leaving him alone, outside of house three with an audience stuffed in the doorway.

“Which one of you is to blame for this?” Ben holds up his phone showing the pictures she sent him.

———-

Ben had enough. The guys were of no help, and neither were their campers. He wondered if the girls were to blame—maybe it was jealousy. He wasn’t there long but knew how crazy “women” could be. Stalking off into the darkness, his frame disappears as easily as hers did driving off in the night.

Change.

All of this needed to change. 

So what if they couldn’t go to the extreme with those stupid pranks anymore? 

They wouldn’t miss it right?

What if they did?

What if Ben sold everyone out?

Would they lose their jobs for a girl?

_For his girl?_

Hux, Dameron and Trooper after, a councilor is paid far better than anything else in town. Losing this job would mean losing _the pay_. It’s the only intelligent reason to go off into the night after Ben Solo.

Ben finds himself at each of the houses looking for her when he finds Rose heading out to her car.

Rose squares her shoulders making it the rest of the way to the car in silence. They both lost something in this, but Rose wouldn’t let him—the enemy—get it out of her.

Ben however has had enough. He failed to fight for Rey and she left like he was nothing. He couldn’t let Rose, his only lifeline go too, so he does the only thing he can think to do, being that he hears her car doors lock immediately after Rose gets in. 

All six foot three inches of Ben Solo jumped on the hood of her car making Rose scream in terror.

“What the hell is the matter with you?!”

“I love her, okay?!”

Rose rolls her head back over her shoulders staining up at the ceiling of her car promising he’ll die single if he does it again. 

“You almost gave me a heart attack!”

“I’m sorry,” he whines finally agreeing to get off of the hood. 

Rose isn’t sure but she thought she heard desperation and opts not to pull away after.

——

Every time Ben’s phone rings he checks the call and hangs up when he sees it isn’t her.

“Popular are you?”

“Not really. They ignore me for the most part. Only complaints tonight about “the girl problem” and something about their cars is coming up now.”

Rose gives a wary side smile dying for him to ask but he doesn’t even acknowledge her.

“I know you guys have this weird war going on. But I really like her. We just, get each other, ya know?” Ben looks out the window into the passing headlights on the other side of the median. “I’ve never had that before—never thought I’d be worthy of it...”

“And you found it with Rey? She must have seen something too. She doesn’t normally let people in. We’re close because we’ve know each other since we were kids. It’s kind of a surprise...”

Ben grimaces when he hears that but can’t make much of a response while his phone continues to ring, so much so he finally answers.

It’s Hux.

“Where the fuck are you? Are you with her?! Ask her where the fuck our cars are!”

“Outside you idiot.”

“No! Someone stole them! You know what’s there now?” He picks up a replica of Ben’s black Mustang and says, “I bet you’re little wench is behind this. I’m calling the cops.”

“Can you please just—“

Rose takes the phone.

“They’re in the communal lot...” Rose gives in.

“Fuck you, Rose.”

“Love you too,” Rose hangs up.

“Why’d you tell him?” Ben can’t help but be amused she folded so fast. Hot wheels in place of their cars _was_ clever. But then the idea of someone else in his own vehicle started to eat at him. He could see why Hux was ready to call.

“Overheard you guys teasing him about wanting to call over the darts. I figured he might blow a casket on this one.”

“But you still...”

“No one crosses Rey and gets away with it,” Rose says as both a warning and a threat.

Ben gulps, sure to tell her what he felt was true. She means the world to him, and he needs to tell her, no beg for another chance.

“Well that’s romantic...If you keep this up, you may ruin me for other men,” she laughs.

Rose.

The Rose, laughed at him.

Ben closes his eyes, repeating a line his father used and often. 

“This is not how I thought this day was going to go.”

——-

Rey left. 

She went home, past the Starbucks that used to be the only place she ever cared for. Home, though was a crappy apartment she got into right after the Plutts left in Crait Springs. Rent for her studio apartment was only four hundred dollars, had exactly no amenities, but a mattress she couldn’t bring herself to use, and a couch she covered with a sheet so she could use it as a bed. Outside she had a broken down pickup and enough parts to go through from what she salvaged at Unkar’s lot the day before it was demolished.

Now sitting in the cab, angry at the world, at Ben, but mostly at herself. Fuck ‘em she thinks, imagining them laughing at her behind her back. Rey balls herself up in the passenger’s seat praying that Unkar would be around.

That he’d just know she needed him.

Her thumb hovers around the call button wondering if she should even bother, when his name lights up and both Decline and Accept show up. Rey accepts after a beat. Her voice is so low she doesn’t know who she is.

“Rey?”

It’s his mom. What the hell?

“Hi?”

“Hi, honey. I would have called with my phone but I like this one, and if it means I can mess with Unie I’d be none the happier.”

She liked claiming that he sleep calls people. Drives him absolutely crazy. She blamed the satisfaction of it all on all the years of raising him. 

It was her turn now to jack with her son.

Rey chuckles sadly.

“You know. I read up.”

“What?” Rey squeaks.

“You didn’t call and Unie is so secretive these days now that he’s dating, I can’t get a word in with him so I’ve been catching up ‘the snooping mom way’. I’m sure you don’t mind.”

Rey laughs at this.

“I didn’t think so.”

“So? What’s the verdict?”

“Aside from the both of you being assholes to each other. It sounds like you’re having a good time being a kid.”

“Thaaanks... the thing is. I met someone. He made me feel like...”

“You matter?”

“Mattered.”

Her silence hung between them before Rey starts with a sigh.

“The jokes went from harmless to hurtful—I, there are pictures of me in suggestive positions all over camp...instead of being my person, he didn’t even try to stand up for me. Or make it right.”

“Is that what hurts the most? Him not being there for you? Because, the truth is they can be so stupid. Sometimes they have to lose it all to know what they had.”

Rey heard Mr. and Mrs. Plutt’s story thousands of times. This was true. She threatened to walk out on him so many times and when she finally did it helped him see what she was to him.

“I hope for your sake, he’s more than some douche-canoe in house three.”

As their call came to an end, Rey saw headlights come up the street. She stays low not knowing who it is, freezing when the car pulls up beside her. Relief settles in when she hears Rose first but then Ben. It makes her stomach flip and her heart pond faster. 

He’s here and worried?

“She lives here?” Ben asks trying to keep the aggravation out of his voice that he chose _this_ over camp.

Rose doesn’t say anything, nodding at her bike on the lawn, and heads for the door to pound on it.

“Rey?”

Ben looks around uncomfortably sitting against the car watching Rose look in her windows. He looks away towards the lot, noticing Rey’s boots on the dash of an old truck.

Making his way to it, Ben tries tapping on the door to be allowed in. He’s stunned when the door unlocks with a loud click and opens it to him. Her face shows such caution, punching him in the gut all over again. With all of his worry he can’t find the words to express his pain. It’s not that there’s nothing to say, but more than he can’t help the way he feels pressing him to close that gap, to make her feel better...to make it right. He surges forward like lightning reaching for the ground, breathing her in when he does.

“Please come back. Don’t live out here like this.”

“I don’t want to. Not after... no.”

“I know. I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t know and when you showed me I didn’t know what to do.”

Rey rolled her eyes caught in his embrace. As mad as she was about the whole ordeal, her memories floated past this showing her all of the times he did stand up for her... all of the times he didn’t back down and wondered how this got so far.

“I just...it’s not going to happen again. I told the head lady I was at fault. They- they have me on probation but I can still bunk there. No pay till August.” Ben shrugs as if it’s not the worst thing in the world. “Losing you though? I’ve never felt so empty.”

Rey stayed quiet, waiting... she was good at waiting. She wanted to see what else he might need to get off of his chest, when he finally asks her to say something, anything at all. He peers up from her hold, his pain etched on his face, clearly saddened that she hasn’t soothed him. Yes she had him, holding him the same way he had reached out to her, but not with the same intensity. In tune with the way she didn’t quite match his flowing feelings, he dropped his gaze feeling silly for even hoping he was what she wanted.

The drawings on the walls were awful. He saw them first hand. Ripped bathroom stall doors off their hinges and pounded fists into the mirrors leaving slight abrasions on his knuckles he wasn’t all that proud of. She was right to be hurt by it, and what was worse, he failed her. 

Ben understood.

His hands slid out from behind her and offers another weaker apology when she catches him. Her small fingers card through his hair like he had always done but pushes back layers over his ear. Her nails graze the soft flesh their.

His breath is uneven, labored, fighting with both remorse and surprise.

It’s in the way she says it, “I know,” that makes him feel like weight has been lifted from him. It’s like he’s no longer alone in this. When he draws his eyes back up to hers to search her for anything she’s trying to hold onto he surprised with a surge of her own.

Rey’s lunge forward puts him off balance sending him back a step or two. Her hand that tucked traced his ear rests comfortably now behind his neck cradling his head, trying to hold him against her.

He is hers.

And she is his.

And nothing else matters.

....Well, Rose matters, and the mess they made did too.

It was time for Rey to come clean. 

Whatever consequences were laced with that, she’d deal with them head on so long as she had her friends and boyfriend by her side.

——

That night they went hand in hand to see Amilyn with no care that they were nearing eleven and she was known to fire people for this. 

Amylin opens the door to the three of them with her seaweed mask and towel wrapped hair expecting them to turn on their heel and leave. When they don’t, she drops her shoulders to let them in instead.

“What is it this time?” she sighs through her question as they all manage their way towards her living space.

“I wanted to apologize. For the pranks I mean. The ones both houses have been— what I mean is...Ben’s pay should be reestablished, and I take responsibility for their action. They were mine and my friend’s playful banter and somehow wound up getting used as retaliation to all the houses,” Rey rushes out.

Amylin eyes her ready to speak again, but Rey flags her down with her hand trying to keep whatever control she had of the room.

“Sorry. I never thought it would have been used in such a way, but they were. And tonight’s, I was way out of line for,” Rey grimaces. “They were intended on being much more than a joke. The last one... I was mad. Had I of been in the right frame of mind. It would have never have happened. So if Hux called the police, I’ll take full responsibility for that as well.”

“But you weren’t even here!” Ben shot up from his seat, “she wasn’t here, you left me...the camp. You left...”

“But I knew.”

“Hang on, Hux called the cops over a prank?”

“Didnt he?” She squeaks.

“Hux has been known for a lot of things, but calling the cops isn’t one of them. He thinks _he’s_ the cops.” 

Amilyn rolls her eyes. 

“There hasn’t been a call that I’m aware of.”

“But Rose, you said...” Ben starts.

“He was going to call over the dick soap darts. Threatened me all day about it.”

Amilyn shakes her head.

“The what?”

“We poured soap molds around his darts.”

Ben snorts, remembering that mess.

“They were still aerodynamic. He could have still used them.”

“Who ever heard of an aerodynamic penis?” asked Amylin.

Had it been just the room full of girls they would have been fine, but Ben was mortified. He covers his face with his hands as the women around him cackle. Imagining playing with them as they were never crossed his mind until now. Would they have been aerodynamic? He thinks about his own, is mine?

The room goes painfully silent.

Ben swears the longest line of profanities in his mind until Amilyn excuses them for the night.

“Consider yourselves off the hook, _if_ you can get the rest of them to come forth and admit their part in it.”

Wait, did she hear him? Or was it in his mind?

As they’re dismissed and back into the warm summer night, Ben offers to walk them back to their house. Conversation’s die down from whispers to silence. Their footsteps and crickets chirping are all they hear all the way back.

Rose heads in first, giving a knowing look.

“Do you really think we could get them to speak up about their hands in all of this?”

“Did you really wonder if _yours is straight_?

Thank goodness for the darkness Ben thinks, enjoying the possibility of not showing how embarrassed that makes him.

“Don’t worry Ben,” she nudges him playfully. “If I could get you to turn, I’m pretty sure we could get everyone to, too.”


End file.
